For once, the term “useful idiot” seems unequal to the task. Nothing I can say here can outdo the AP’s account of the trip, so hug your children, take a deep breath, and step forward into the void. Quote:

“The crowd was really engaged, laughed at all of the Globetrotters antics, and actually got super loud towards the end as the score got close,” said [VICE Media correspondent Ryan] Duffy, who suited up for the game in a blue uniform emblazoned with “United States of America. “Most fun I’ve had in a while.”…

“They bonded during the game,” [VICE founder Shane] Smith said [of Kim and Rodman] by telephone from New York after speaking to the crew. “They were both enjoying the crazy shots, and the Harlem Globetrotters were putting on quite a show.”…

After the game, Rodman addressed Kim in a speech before a crowd of tens of thousands of North Koreans, telling him, “You have a friend for life,” Detrick said…

“Dinner was an epic feast. Felt like about 10 courses in total,” Duffy said in an email to AP. “I’d say the winners were the smoked turkey and sushi, though we had the Pyongyang cold noodles earlier in the trip and that’s been the runaway favorite so far.”

VICE posted photos of Kim and Rodman yukking it up at the game but, alas, no photos of the “epic feast.” If you’re curious about how epic North Korean dining habits can get, go see what Gawker has up. Mind you, we’re two weeks out from a North Korean nuclear test that was designed explicitly to threaten America; according to one former U.S. military commander in South Korea, the North might have an ICBM capable of delivering a nuclear payload to the continental U.S. as soon as five years from now.

Meanwhile, the country’s gulag network is getting bigger. Exit quotation from a VICE producer: “Um … so Kim Jong Un just got the (hash)VICEonHBO crew wasted … no really, that happened.”

Update: CNN’s verdict? A “diplomatic triumph.”